On a crackling summer afternoon, four women – Gaunt, Bubbly, Obnoxious and Madam White – meet at a bar, and tell each other stories. Whisky, raspberry wine, absinthe and palm toddy flow; it’s Happy Hour, after all.
A contest unfolds. Whoever wears the talking hat gets a free drink. Whoever misses a turn buys the next round. Those are the rules.
And so begins a cycle of tales. A young woman troubled by a pet fish’s loneliness discovers love in her last term in college. A twelve-year-old receives a card on her birthday from a dead cousin. A sightless courtesan regains her vision, wooed by the sun. A woman encounters her late father in a dog on the street, and the world’s oldest invention consorts with its final one. One last story, told by the bartender, ends with a riddle.
The eighteen stories in this genre-confounding book trip at will from fantasy to science fiction, from magic realism to feminist parable, from ghost story to folk tale, rendering the bizarre everyday and the forbidden deeply human.
From reviews
Sucheta Dasgupta writes like someone who has spent years listening to voices, cadences, silences and squabbles and then decided to let them overlap rather than fall into neat lines. What makes Ladies’ Night different is its refusal to settle into a single storytelling mode. One piece might unfold as wry, observational prose; another slip into free verse; yet another could read like a philosophical joke stretched to its limit. The collection doesn’t demand consistency but only imagination from its reader.
Sudha G. Tilak, Deccan Chronicle
Read the entire review here :
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/booksart/book-review-stories-on-the-house-1955597
This Indian indie debut is a breath of fresh air. The reader will be as hooked as one is while rapidly turning the pages of a thriller. Sucheta Dasgupta’s book is enough justification for why you should keep an eye out for debut fiction from indie publishers.
Ankit Rath, Medium
Read the entire review here :
https://thebiblioraptor.medium.com/this-indian-indie-debut-is-a-breath-of-fresh-air-book-review-of-sucheta-dasguptas-ladies-night-a6ac73e763ca
Vivid, surreal, and engaging, Ladies’ Night exhibits a distinctive voice and style. An impressive fictional debut.
Shuma Raha, Amazon review
Ladies’ Night is as authentic and raw as it gets; unconventionally structured, totally unforgettable. This is the first work of fiction by the author. One hopes it will not be her last.
Shailaja Khanna, The Tribune
Read the entire review here:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/book-reviews/ladies-night-by-sucheta-dasgupta-women-on-women/
There is a headiness to these stories that grows on the reader. They offer rewards of wit, humour, artistic rigour and intellectual surprise.
Basudhara Roy, Outlook
Read the entire review here:
https://www.outlookindia.com/books/calculated-chaos-review-of-sucheta-dasguptas-ladies-night
In her debut collection, Sucheta Dasgupta firmly foregrounds women, recording their voices, fighting erasure, and celebrating autonomy. Ladies’ Night is less a conventional short story collection than an extended argument about storytelling itself.
Aditi Mishra, Frontline
Read the entire review here:
https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/reviewsladies-night-sucheta-dasgupta/article71284533.ece
An assured and ambitious debut that announces a significant new fictional voice. Ladies’ Night does not simply entertain; it provokes thought, rewards rereading and leaves behind the unmistakable sense that its stories continue long after the final conversation at the bar has ended.
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri
Read the entire review here:
https://shantanuraychaudhuri.com/2026/08/10/ladies-night-imagination-unfettered/
Dasgupta’s writing is intelligent, layered, honest and deep, and also funny on occasion.
Harimohan Paruvu, Blogspot.com
Read more here:
https://harimohanparuvu.blogspot.com/2026/05/ladies-night-sucheta-dasgupta.html
Ladies’ Night paints a deeply human picture of modern, urban, Indian women, disassociating them from stereotypes, [and is] written with [both] wit and melancholy.
Paperback Pickings, The Telegraph, Calcutta
